I've only "gone out" once with a guy since I broke up with XABF. It was originally going to be dinner, but ended up being lunch, which was perfectly fine with me. He immediately took the check, tried to pay in cash, but didn't have enough to cover the tip so I offered him enough to cover the rest.
He put the bill on a card instead, which made me feel good.
I have no intention of "seeing" him again. The age gap is larger than I realized, he puts more emphasis on expensive mechanical toys than I feel comfortable with (he drove a black Porshe convertible that day, and informed me that it was his "spare car," he drove it specifically to impress me, and hoped it was working), he told me about a comment he had made to his daughter that I didn't care for (a rather selfish comment about his daughter's mother, and he seemed rather proud of it), plus even though he's legally separated he's still officially married and doesn't intend to ever marry someone else again.
All in all, not a good long-term investment! But lunch was fun, and I felt good afterwards, both because he treated
me well, and also because I had learned enough in my recovery to realize that he was not a good bet for what I was looking for, in spite of his good behavior during lunch.
That said, I still see him in the hallways at work, and we'll smile and exchange pleasantries. I do get the vibe that he's still interested, but by the same token, he's also a gentlemen enough to recognize that I'm not, and not push it.
I'm not in a rush to date anyone, him or anyone else, for awhile yet, but that lunch date came at a good time in my recovery, because it helped me reinforce some things I had been working on, and let go of other things that I shouldn't have been holding on to.
I also learned that it's okay for me to have my own opinions about things, and I don't really have to justify them if I don't want to. In this case, I simply told him that I enjoyed lunch (which is true), and that I was looking for someone closer to my own age (also true), and left out the rest because it wasn't that important.
He is who he is, I am who I am, and as far as I'm concerned our identities are not compatible. Why hurt someone's feelings trying to make a point that doesn't need to be made?
I think that someone getting upset about you not paying the tip, then implying that you're an inferior woman because you didn't, is extremely rude. I don't mind helping to pay for things, but it's important for me to feel that I have a
choice to do so. (In the beginning with XABF, I did have a choice. Towards the end, he picked everywhere we went - which was more than we could afford - and told me how much of it I'd be paying for. I never felt like I had a choice to cancel or refuse, he'd go ballistic and pull out all his strongest emotional abuse tactics.)
If it was discussed prior to dinner, or if the meals were more equal in cost and you were also interested in going to a full dinner, or if the restaurant was your idea entirely, then that's one thing. But to order so much extra, and try to eat your dinner, too? If he had enough money for all that food, he has enough for a tip.